


Ephemeral

by LadyoftheShield



Category: The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 17:51:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5507177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyoftheShield/pseuds/LadyoftheShield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt for the Underland Chronicles Gift Exchange 2015: "Gregor showing Luxa some part of New York and/or taking her on a road trip to Virginia.“ Spoilers for the Code of Claw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ephemeral

Bereft of the golden circlet on her brow, she showed up on his doorstep with rain running down her marble-white skin. He didn’t ask how she found him. Rats still moved in the walls of their apartment, even if they never went to the basement.

"Take me away from here,” were the only words that broke the silence between them, and he obliged.

The years had not been kind to either of them. At the age of twenty-one, he could see Vikus in her motion and Solovet in her face. She sat next to him in the driver’s seat, her knees drawn up to her chest as she leaned against the door. Moonlight glinted in her silver hair and the clock on his dash shone an eerie green on her translucent skin.

Gregor didn’t ask any questions. He simply drove until the sky bled pink clouds and the road blurred in front of him. Pulling into the Mohawk Travel Plaza, he rubbed his eyes and stretched. “I’ll be back,” he said, leaving her balled up on the front seat.

He returned with a cold root beer and a pair of sunglasses. “Take these,” he said, handing them to her. “They’ll protect your eyes from the sun.”

Those same eyes turned to look at him, reflecting the violet of the rising sun. Wordlessly, she complied.

"Are you hungry?” he asked, to stem the awkward silence.

“No,” she said, traces of pride still lingering in her voice.

“You still need to eat,” he said, and shifted the gear to park. “We’ve been on the road for hours.”

Luckily, the nearby pizza joint’s prices were as cheap as the napkins that slid over the grease on his chin. Behind the thick layer of tinted plastic, he couldn’t see her eyes, but he saw the sharp jolt that shocked through her body at the foreign taste of pizza.

“It burns,” she said, reaching for the half-filled, condensed glass on the table.

He couldn’t help but bark out a quiet laugh at that. “It’s only pepperoni,” he said, earning him what he assumed was a regal glare.

But her shoulders slumped after a few moments.

Gregor swallowed, and the joints of his knuckles tightened..

He said nothing about the crescents under her eyes, or the scars he didn’t recognize. Instead, he produced a travel brochure he’d picked up somewhere and laid it before her. “It’s eight hours from here to Virginia and my family’s land,” he said, “longer if we   
stop and look at the Overland. There’s more than just grassland, you know.”

After a moment, her chin lifted. “I have the time to spare.”

“Can they manage without you?” he asked.

The tight braid down her back swung as she turned her head to look at him. “They will have to,” she said, her words suffocating any resistance.

Hours ticked by like grains of sand sliding down glass. Sleep, drive, stop. Call mom, assure her everything is fine, call Larry and get his shift covered. Windows up and down, up and down- it reminded him of Lizzie, the way she plays with the windows in fascination, and he sees Boots in the way everything in her lightens at the sight of a waterfall.

They don’t talk about the nightmares writhing under their eyes. He never mentions the whimpers that fill the car while she sleeps, and pretends he doesn’t call for Ares in his dreams.

Crumbling brick and rotting vegetables await them in Virginia. They had never been able to scrape up the funds to move, and under the weight of decades without a caretaker, his family’s land had wasted away. Peering in through dirt-stained windows, he took in the scattered beer cans on the floor and the sunshine shining through the a hole in the ceiling.

“So much for a bed tonight,” he said, pulling a face at the thought of sleeping in the car again.

She was already pulling out the blankets. “The grass will be as good a bed as any,” she said, kicking off her shoes.

That night alone, they spoke of the things that made them into the people they were today. That night alone, they whispered of things that might have been and feelings that lay dormant under responsibilities and obligations.

Although they took a longer route and he neglected the gas pedal, the drive back flew by quicker than the previous one. They graced every tourist trap, climbed down to every waterfall and park and watched the sun rise and set as often as the horizon would dance with it.

Then they stood in front of the rock at Central Park, and he wondered where the last few days had gone.

Her shoulders are solid once more, and the thin golden circlet rested again on her brow. Despite the milld sunburns on her skin, she looked every inch the Underland Queen as she walked down the tunnel into the darkness. Just as she became a silhouette, she turned.

“Goodbye, Overlander.”

His reply is swallowed by the starless night, and her steady, heavy footsteps overwrite his farewell.


End file.
